By Se Young Lee and Sohee Kim SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korean rivals Samsung Electronics Co Ltd and LG Electronics Inc said on Tuesday they have agreed to call off all their legal disputes including a bitter months-long conflict over a set of damaged washing machines. The announcement comes more than a month after LG appliances chief Jo Seong-jin was indicted by Seoul prosecutors on a charge of deliberately damaging Samsung washing machines at a retail store in Germany last September, following a formal complaint filed by Samsung seeking criminal punishment. When LG published surveillance video footage to YouTube in an attempt to prove Jo's innocence, Samsung said the video was heavily edited in the executive's favor. The agreement extends to Samsung Electronics subsidiary Samsung Display and to LG Display Co Ltd. Samsung Display employees were indicted in February on charges of stealing organic light-emitting diode (OLED) display panel technology from LG Display. more...

(Reuters) - International Business Machines Corp said on Tuesday it will invest $3 billion over the next four years in a new 'Internet of Things' unit, aiming to sell its expertise in gathering and making sense of the surge in real-time data. The Armonk, New York-based technology company said its services will be based remotely in the cloud, and offer companies ways to make use of the new and multiplying sources of data such as building sensors, smartphones and home appliances to enhance their own products. For its first major partnership, IBM said a unit of the Weather Co will move its weather data services onto IBM's cloud, so that customers can use the data in tandem with IBM's analytics tools. As a result, IBM is hoping that companies will be able to combine live weather forecasting with a range of business data, so companies can quickly adapt to customer buying patterns or supply chain issues connected to the weather. more...

By Joseph Menn SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - A security company has discovered a computer spying campaign that it said "likely" originated with a government agency or political group in Lebanon, underscoring how far the capability for sophisticated computer espionage is spreading beyond the world’s top powers. Israeli-based computer security firm Check Point Software Technologies said its researchers ruled out any financial motive for the effort that targeted telecommunications and networking companies, military contractors, media organizations and other institutions in Lebanon, Israel, Turkey and seven other countries. Researchers also found computers infected with spyware in the United States, United Kingdom and Canada. The campaign, which Check Point dubbed Volatile Cedar, dates back at least three years and deploys hand-crafted software with some of the hallmarks of state-sponsored computer espionage. more...

China will punish Internet companies including Tencent Holdings Ltd, Youku Tudou Inc and Baidu Inc's iQiyi for hosting videos suspected of containing violence and pornography, which it said causes juvenile delinquency. The offending material is primarily Japanese animation on the video streaming websites of Tencent, Youku Tudou, iQiyi, Sohu.com Inc and Leshi Internet Information & Technology Corp Beijing (LeTV), the Ministry of Culture said on its website on Tuesday. more...